


The Leila Stories - Heat

by Jay Tryfanstone (tryfanstone)



Series: The Leila Stories [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iskryne Series - Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Dubious Consent, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Psychic Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 20:33:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9201743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryfanstone/pseuds/Jay%20Tryfanstone
Summary: "You're in heat," Steve said, a horrified realization.Not quite,Leila said.Soon.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fourth of four stories, and although it should be possible to read alone, it probably makes more sense in context.  
> Please see end notes for sources, series description and rating.
> 
>  

Leila's nose was saying, " _What's this? What's this?_ " all innocent puppy-dog unless, Steve thought, you got close enough to see the size of her teeth. He watched her idly, her long, lean back sliding between sprays of wildflowers he'd never known the names for, although he knew they grew on disturbed ground, because it was in everyone's interests to know where last year's mines had been laid. Summer flowers. Her fur gleamed faintly, dusted in golden yellow pollen.

There was nothing left of the training camp. Only a few earthworks, pacing out the memory of rows of aluminum huts and practice trenches. There really wasn't, Steve thought, much point to the perimeter fence, although it had given way easily enough, rusted barbed wire and sagging steel posts. 

Leila's tail vanished over a horizon that might once have been the canteen, disappearing between grasses taller than herself.

It was a beautiful day. The sky was that clear and lambent blue that promised and sometimes paid up on a week of sunshine. There were insects among the grass, tiny little winged beasts with erratic flight paths, feathered antennae and tickling feet. Steve brushed one gently off his shoulder, and found it clinging to his finger, all frozen, dignified panic. He blew it away, light as a dandelion clock. There was nothing else here. They should go. He'd left an unfinished report on his kitchen table, he'd been thinking about checking the timing on his spark plugs, he'd got laundry to do. Natasha or Sam might drop by, and Jarvis of course was constantly and futilely on watch for any trace of Bucky. There was an anomaly on that map of Odessa he wanted to investigate, a notation on a rare mineral spectrum analysis and non-native vegetation, just in case. But it wasn't often he and Leila actually got out in the countryside - or what passed for it twenty miles out of Manhattan, manicured and security-fenced - and Leila felt, at the back of his mind, idly content. She snapped at a butterfly, without malice. _Steve,_ she said, checking in.

"Leila?" 

Today she was light steps and skittish bounces, all her mind occupied with the heat of the sun on her back and the packed earth under her paws and smell - every smell, rotting wood and decaying leather and rust, some small animal underground Leila sneezed at, head on one side, listening to it scuttle deeper. It had been a few days since they'd been so open to each other, all their senses mingled in packsense. She'd been preoccupied, and Steve too, with the endless paperwork of trying to keep the Avengers independent and still support a structure of national security which was not tied to any other alphabet agency. An agency which was never, never going to carry inside its walls an apocalyptic parasite. And Bucky, of course, always Bucky.

Oddly definite, Leila pushed back at him the smell of steel and leather, and the unmistakable crack of a bullet in darkness.

"Yeah," Steve said, and added the smell of Bucky's mother's soda bread, and brylcream and New England apples in fall, because whatever his packname, Bucky was more than the trappings of war.

 _Pack,_ Leila said, very clearly. She was mostly intent on quartering the far corner of the parade ground, where the kennels had been. That was after Steve's time, of course, the army hadn't been breeding wolves at Camp Lehigh when he'd trained here. 

Leila's voice carried a trace of wistfulness, yearning, under the word.

In consolation, Steve sent an image of herself at the head of the Howling Commandos. Dugan's Bjorn had been bigger than her, but when Steve pictured them, he was at Leila's shoulder, as solid and competent as his two-legged brother. Dernier's little Anjou trotted at her heels, and the rest of the wolves were there as well, suddenly sharp and achingly clear in Steve's memory. They were hunting, noses high to catch the scent. He added in his own regret that he couldn't give her these wolves, that he had once had a pack, even if he hadn't realized, then, what they were, that he couldn't give her everything she wanted. They'd talked, after the helicarrier. 

Leila added in a wolf ranging ahead of that pack, a black wolf, the scent of him mud and cordite and poppies after rain, so clear it was shocking. Nair. _Pack,_ Leila said again.

"Yes," Steve confirmed, although Leila had underscored that familiar, imagined image with a smug triumph he'd never felt from her before, as if she could bound over the next earthwork and they'd be waiting. It was just there for a second, and then she was all about the fluttering acid-bitter moths dancing over the grass. In her awareness there was something metal nearby, a sense of cool darkness and rust, although Leila was not paying much attention. She'd got a moth on her nose, and she was holding still, waiting for it to fly away. 

The scent was more substantial than the collapsed fence posts and decaying barbed wire. It was unlikely that there were any dangerous structures left, Tony had been through the place with a fine-toothed comb, but Steve jogged gently across the parade ground and followed Leila down the track, where the kennels had been. He could sense her nearby, and turned a corner at the end of the block to see her tail vanish over a banked-up pile of rubble. He followed. Over the bank he found a little hollow which must have once been paved, there was grass growing up between the cracks in the asphalt, and at the back of it a gaping black hole. The entrance, Steve thought, to a Nissen hut, grassed over now and probably half-collapsed. Leila was peering inside, her tail sweeping in slow, curious arcs. 

To Leila, the air inside smelled fresh. There was a day-old trace of something living, musty cloth and fresh water and the sharp scent of apples. Her tail straightened. She bounded forwards, into the dark.

" _Leila!_ " 

Leila sent him back curiosity, an occupied nose, and that odd trace of triumph.

"Leila!" Steve called, out loud. It was time they went, there was nothing here. 

She did not reply, although she was there, a little muffled, as if the passage went back further than Steve thought. He followed. The mud across the threshold was pristine, apart from a single paw print as clear as a signpost. Leila didn't mark her territory the way a wild wolf would do, but she was still a wolf, and she liked laying claim to things - Steve, her blanket, even the despised GPS tagged collar. That thought, Leila heard, and was amused by. 

He had to duck to enter, but inside, he could straighten up. The air did feel fresh, and there was a trace of chemicals to add to that curious cocktail - shampoo? Steve thought. _Shampoo?_ He took a single stride towards Leila, and the tripwire broke, and the shutter came down with a silent and devastating slam. 

Darkness. 

Steve flung out his hands, but touched nothing but air. He was too far from the walls. He couldn't see anything. There was no trace of light from the shutter, which must have been oiled, greased, prepared, a trap. "Stay down," he told Leila, although his wolfsister was as unpurturbed as if they were still out for a Sunday afternoon stroll. Leila was slowly, uncurling in his mind, Leila was absolutely - ' _Christ_.' Steve thought, staggering with the force of it - Leila was _incandescent_ with joy. Suffused with it, jubilant and impatient and suddenly so clear in Steve's mind that, astonished, he knew she'd been blocking him. She had planned this. She meant this to happen. "What?" he asked her. " _What?_ " 

Leila sent back a smug, wordless reassurance. She said, there are even blankets. She was pleased with the blankets. She was sniffing at them, smelling...wolf, and wolfbrother. Pack. In a minute or two, Leila said, they'll be here. She could be patient. She had been patient for months, a lifetime. Although it was beginning to hurt, this need in her she'd been repressing, this living, hungry, desire, a belly-clenching shuddering sensitivity. They could _hurry_ , she needed them _now_.

"You're in heat," Steve said, a horrified realization. As if naming it made the thing real, his own core temperature was rising, echoing Leila's. He was conscious of his stirring genitals, his breath, coming a little faster in the still air. It was so fast. He'd had none of the snappish warning they'd both gone through the first time.

 _Not quite,_ Leila told him. _Soon._

"But-" Steve swallowed the word. He let his hands fall to his sides, and stood very still, consciously relaxing his muscles. 

_There are blankets,_ Leila said brightly. Their territory was secure, had been patrolled for weeks without any sign of any threat, there was food and water. The camp laid itself out in Leila's mind, burrows and sightlines and familar scents and tripwires and pit-traps, perfectly defended for wolf and man, although those defences were not Steve's and Leila had never marked the perimeter with her own scent. Steve fussed too much. Leila said fondly, blithely confident of their ability to handle any situation, _Whose sister do you think I am?_

'Oh God, no,' Steve thought, remembering that awful first heat when Leila refused everything, any other wolf, any offer of any wolf, food, comfort. She had snarled and whined and panted, holed up in Steve's closet, and Steve had snarled and whined with her, trapped in a horrific cycle of unfulfilled arousal. He'd had to - he managed, just, to shield Leila from the depth of his horror at the memory. This was her choice. She'd picked this place and led him to it, she was tugging the blankets into more a more comfortable shape and arching her back against the itch that was already crawling up her legs. She had brought them into another wolf's territory, a bonded wolf, with a wolfbrother who would be a stranger to both of them.

There was no questioning a wolf's choice. It was. 

Grimly, Steve spun on his heel and began to investigate the shutter. If he was lucky, he would be able to get it open from the inside. If not, he was going to have to batter their way out, persuade Leila to leave, get them both back into town and hole up for the next few days. They couldn't stay here. It wasn't safe. It wasn't sanitary, Steve thought, on an awful shred of amusement as he grubbed out the dirt at the base of shutter, hoping - but the shutter had fallen into a steel casing, the edge of it well below his reach. The sides were just as well protected, and the steel, for all it was pitted and weather-worn, was two inches thick and somehow shielded against packsense. Steve couldn't find a single weakness. All his senses were blunted, hobbled by the hut's shielding. Even here, he should have been able to sense, through Leila, the outside, the smell of grass, the awareness that there was a world outside the darkness and they would return to it. Even if she was going into heat, her senses were still far sharper than Steve's own.

"They shield the room," the Wolf Corps private said, in his memory, sitting on Steve's cot with a mug of Dugan's brandy, his eyes black with fatigue, after his wolfsister's first mating. "The breeding hut. You can't - there's nothing outside. Just her and you, and you know - someone's going to come through the door. It's the loneliest thing in the world, opening-" his voice shook - "opening yourself up, knowing that when that door opens - and I can't tell her that, she can't know-"

They'd come here, he and Leila, from the parade ground. Along the track, past the kennels, out on the edge of the camp, isolated, to a shielded room. They were, he thought, in the old breeding quarters. 

Leila agreed, a sense of rightness. Here, where her sisters had mated before her, generations of wolves bonded and unbonded, ancestral pack land, this was the right place. She sent him an image of his own closet, sterile and empty, and the awful, lonely misery of riding out her heat on a heap of his own shirts, aware that Steve suffered with her and knowing - _Not the right time,_ Leila told him. _Now. Here. This wolf._ Her certainty was absolute.

"What have you planned?" Steve asked her. "Leila. What did you do?"

He'd stopped tugging at the shutter. He was leaning his head against it, the steel cool against the sweat on his forehead and the palms of his hands. 

_Found our pack,_ Leila said. She was ready now. Where were they? 

" _Who-_ " Steve began, and then her heat crested. It was not a slow swell, it was a tsunami, a wave of furious, compelling need, white hot, stabbing into Steve's belly and his balls and the soles of his feet. He shuddered, curling against steel. His knees were shaking. His fingers curled, his toes, his nipples were hard, his chest aching, his dick stiffening so quickly he was light-headed. He shivered, his jeans and t-shirt unbearable against his skin, he wanted to be touched, held down, fucked, mated. He was on his hands and knees, panting. He needed. His ass ached, and his belly felt vulnerable and tender and empty. 

He was aware of Leila whining, and then she struggled to her feet, her hind legs unsteady, her back flattening. She _wanted_ , but they were not there, her mate, her mate's brother, and she was alone still. _Where are they?_ , Leila demanded, and threw her head back and howled. The sound echoed through the hut, strained and high-pitched and lonely. 

"Leila!" Steve called. He pushed himself to his knees, shaking, sweating, had to drag the unbearable irritant of his t-shirt off, his dick was wincingly caught against the coarse denim of his jeans, they'd have to go too. He unbuttoned, ripped the zip open. "Leila, I'm here, we'll do this together, it's okay, it's okay."

The shutter rattled. A brief, fresh breeze eddied around Steve's ankles. It smelled of wolf.

Leila howled again, short and sharp and triumphant. A crack of light appeared, over by the far edge of the shutter, square-edged. There was a door in the shutter. Of course there was a door, Steve thought, and fighting against himself and his wolfsister, against their shared and overwhelming need to surrender, to spread their legs and offer up their body, he clenched his fists and brought his hands up. He would fight their way out. He would fight, for himself, for Leila.

The door opened. 

There was no water in the hut, but for a moment it was there, the rush of water, the sea, the tide, a river, a river in a canyon, the freezing rush of the wind striking up from rock and ice. Steve did not know if it was his memory or Leila's, they were so intertwined.

The door opened. There was light behind it, sunshine sharp. On the threshold, there was a man and a wolf. The wolf smelled of the desert. The man smelled of ice. They were perfectly dangerous _and he knew them both_. Every muscle in Steve's body tensed, electric, thrumming with recognition and fear and joy. Leila was on her feet. Steve could feel the shivers of heat and need roll through her, the imperative _mate_ , but she was in front of him in one bound, paws wide, claws digging into the concrete, tail straight, head up, ears back. He could feel her pride fly over both them. She was a queen, an empress, he was hers, they were not some pack bitch rolling over for the first supplicant. 

The man and the wolf in the doorway were so still they could have been frozen. Negation slammed down in packsense, cold as ice, a rejection of that first, joyous packbond.

All Leila's joy was hone. Although her hind legs were trembling with need and Steve had to clench his teeth on the whine that wanted to tear out of his throat, Leila would rip these strangers apart if they were _other_ , not _mate_. There would be no mercy. 

Leila did not stand alone. Steve, aching, fever-hot, got his feet under him and forced himself upright, calculated the first feint and the first strike and anticipated how he was going to tear open this imposter's throat with his teeth.

The wolf on the threshold whined. He was a big wolf, rough-coated, powerful enough to be a threat to both of them, but his head was down and his pose submissive. The man beside him was a dangerously tense silhouette, and the lines of his silhouette were angular and armed. Painfully naked without his shield, Steve braced himself. The man's head turned towards him, a deliberate, threatening move. Steve's fists were up. Here, in this space, he had to be Leila's champion.

The wolf whined, supplicant, and Leila, paws braced, threw open the packsense. It encompassed all of them, wider and wilder than Steve had ever experienced, and _Nair_ pushed the smell of mud and cordite and poppies after rain towards them with such force Steve stumbled back a step. He was blown wide open. There were suddenly three of them in the packsense, Leila's urgency, her need, Steve's protectiveness, and his incredulity, Nair's strength, his joyous _pack pack pack_ over-riding for one brief second even Leila's blazing recognition. _Pack_ , Nair forced towards both of them, and for the first time Steve felt his own pack-name become something greater, part of all of them. All four of them. Nair - in packsense, unmistakably Nair, Bucky's Nair - threw them an image of his own teeth clenched around something precious and battered and shining and opened the packsense as wide as he could. Wider, he was straining with effort, and flung down before them his brother _bullet-in-the-night_. Shredded and torn, in shades of scent and feeling unfamiliar to a wolf, he added in his brother's _bloodied-nose-and-skinned-knuckles-exasperation_ and _chicken-soup-and-camphor_ and _I'll-always-have-your-six_. There was not three of them in the pack sense, there were four, although their fourth was - was a monster, a looming shadow, ice and death and blood on snow - 

As clearly as if he was there, Steve could taste rabbit stew in his mouth, could picture the evening sky and the trees and the bowl he ate from, the peppery taste of the soft, cooked meat, the warmth of _bullet-in-the-night_ 's shoulder against his as he ate. It was a wolf's memory, scented and vivid. His back hit the wall, jarring. _Bullet-in-the-night_ smelled of himself. Smelled of pack. Smelled of a pack older, far older than Steve and Leila's shining bond, a pack Steve had lost seventy years ago. 

"Bucky," Steve breathed, and fell to his knees, awed by relief.

In their packsense, _bullet-in-the-night_ stirred. He was all darkness and sharp edges against the light at the door, slow as a glacier, ice-cold. Leila flinched, and then held steady. She was their queen. She would have his allegiance. If he was to be worthy of them - and then, as Steve thought, belatedly, on a rising tide of incredulity, _Bucky_ , really, truly, Bucky, at last - as the man in the doorway braced his shoulders - he was all power, the breadth of his shoulders, the strength of his thighs - it was Leila who dominated over their pack with a triumphant recognition that left no space for regret or condemnation. They were here, Leila thought. They were all here, and this was right, this was them, and she would have them, they were all hers, and she was - she was abruptly all empty heat and need, demanding and imperative. Nair's strength went up in flames. He was bounding forward. Leila skittered sideways, let his fur brush hers in a flicker of warmth, spun and ducked under his nose and rolled her flank against his, leaped away. She was teasing. Nair bounded after her, big black paws silent on the beaten earth. They jostled each other, not gently, testing, a familiar testing as if they'd run together all of their lives. In the pack sense, Steve could feel Leila's eagerness. She wanted. She _wanted_. 

_Bullet-in-the-night_ shifted in the doorway. His head was down. He was all leather and steel, which was right, he was their wall, their protection, and _bullet-in-the-night_ understood as none of the rest of them did the threat _outside_. He would not lay down his arms. 

Leila rolled over for Nair, let him ruffle his nose through the soft hair of her belly, and whined. She pushed his nose away with one paw, and then - she couldn't wait. She was back on her belly, crouched. She was _empty_. She _needed_. She crooked her tail, and Steve could feel Nair's height and weight looming over her back, the moment before they mated.

He was on his hands and knees, naked, aching. He crawled to _bullet-in-the-night_. His hips felt loose. His thighs shook. He needed. He was nothing but need. "Bucky," Steve groaned, through his teeth. "I'm sorry," he said. There were no choices left for either of them. "I'm so sorry."

Nair's teeth closed on Leila's neck. His hips snapped against hers. _Not yet_ , he said to her, but he was all hard-heat-now-want himself. All the pack was Leila's need and her joy and her impatience.

 _Bullet-in-the-night_ thumped to his knees. He bared his teeth. His hands ripped at the fastening of his overskin. Uniform. Leather tore. One of his hands gleamed, silver. _Danger_. Of them all, he was the one who understood whatthey were doing. In packsense, he was all muscle memory, small bursts of fragmented memories of heats long past, of snatched meals and crumpled blankets and pain, of the need to control his strength, and underneath a wondering awareness that here there were no guards and no cameras and no cattle prods. There would not be. _Bullet-in-the-night_ slammed the shutter door shut, and metal sung as he wrenched the bolt into place. Outside was gone, snuffed out, shut out, unimportant.

The whine Steve had been throttling tore from his throat. _Bullet-in-the-night_ growled his answer. In the packsense, he was a lightning-flash of movement, the second before he lunged forward and grabbed Steve. One flesh hand, one metal, warm and unyielding. Those hands yanked Steve up, spun him, held them front-to-back with one warning metal hand spanning Steve's throat and the other reaching down between his legs. _Bullet in the night_ 's thighs spread Steve's. He was all power and muscle, heated steel, a fraying, insistent awareness that in seconds, the only thing they would know was heat.

Leila crouched, yelping, pleading. She didn't understand. They were all there. What were they waiting for?

Steve arched his back against kevlar and leather. He felt liquid, smooth as water. His dick -he was desperately hard, aching, harder than he'd ever been - brushed _bullet-in-the-night_ 's reaching arm, the thin skin of his wrist and then the heat of his forearm. Tender and swollen, it caught against the small hairs on _bullet-in-the-night_ 's skin, a delicate, shuddering sensation. _bullet-in-the-night_ strained. His metal wrist brushed Steve's balls, electric. His fingers, blunt, heated, reached down and touched Steve with unbearable intimacy, probed the vulnerability of the space between his legs. Steve's thighs widened for him, braced. His head rolled back, onto _bullet-in-the-night_ 's shoulder. His teeth were clenched. _Bullet-in-the-night_ shifted his grip. The muscles in his thighs, against Steve's, tightened. He was, abruptly - his fingers were - Steve yelped and tried to curl down, to where _bullet-in-the-night_ had breached his body, where his fingers forced Steve open. It wasn't right, that frantic pull and stretch, it was artificial, Steve's body should have been as ready as Leila's, open and aching.

Nair howled. His hips stuttered. He could not wait much longer.

 _Bullet-in-the-night_ spat on his fingers. He knocked Steve forward, pushed him down, and buried his face between Steve's shoulder blades. Steve tasted dirt, and held himself in place by his fingernails. _Bullet-in-the-night_ was panting, silent damp breaths against Steve's back. In Steve's ass his thrusting fingers were bulky and powerful, stretching and pushing. Cold. Not cruel. He pulled back, spat again. Steve arched his back, moaning. _Bullet-in-the-night_ swore, something harsh and guttural. His hips drew back. His fingers pulled out, leaving Steve hollow.

Nair's back paw slipped. His hips juddered. Leila trembled underneath him, open, painfully needy. Beyond his control, Nair's back arched. He held himself there, shaking with the effort to _wait_.

' _Bucky_ ,' Steve thought, ' _Bucky!_ ' In packsense, it was a demand.

Nair obeyed. He thrust home.

 _Bullet-in-the-night_ shuddered. His fingers clamped on Steve's hip. His dick, thick and heated, pushed against Steve's ass in awkward splintering thrusts, barely breaching. Scarlet in their packsense, _bullet-in-the-night_ was despairingly aware of both the inexcapable demands of Leila's heat and ensuing pain. 

Leila howled.

Steve, panting, relaxed everything for Bucky, reached back, dragged him down, opened for him, _bullet-in-the-night_ inside him, his scent, his hands, his dick, his pain, his darkness, everything, Steve wanted him. Needed him. They were _pack_. His body was - he twisted his back, felt the sweat break out between his shoulder blades, and then, with triumph, stuttering, sticky-spit-slick, forced himself back onto _bullet-in-the-night_. The stretch hurt, briefly, and then not at all. It was Steve pushing back, taking _bullet-in-the-night_ over and over again, while _bullet-in-the-night_ trembled above him. "Come on, come on," Steve told him through gritted teeth, aware of Leila and Nair, needing to be with the wolves, their joy, Leila's triumphant sureness. " _Get on with it, soldier_."

 _Bullet-in-the-night_ sobbed once into Steve's back, and pushed back. 

"Yes!" Steve muttered, "That's it, come on, you, it's me, need you." His knees were shaking. His dick was so hard it scarcely shook with the movement of his body. He was desperate to come, couldn't think, could feel Nair's teeth in his neck and the way _bullet-in-the-night's_ harness, perfunctorily unbuckled, dragged against his inner thighs and his belly, could feel the skin of his own balls contract and his stomach muscles tighten. He wanted so much, so badly.

"Bucky!" he begged. 

_Bullet-in-the-night_ knelt up, pulling Steve's ass higher, making him scrabble for balance. He took a deep breath - Steve could feel his belly heave - and then he forced his dick into Steve, fat and heavy and really _there_ for one excruciatingly perfect second, snatched his hips back and pushed in again and again and again. It was a painful, jabbing rhythm, the same rhythm as Nair's, the same unseeing power, unstoppable. Steve squirmed and yelled and hit the flat of his hand off the floor and _bullet-in-the-night_ fucked him hard and fast and exactly, perfectly in tune, perfectly, as fierce and solid in Steve as he was in their packsense. 

Steve came for the first time when _bullet-in-the-night_ jacked his ass in the air. He barely noticed, barely softened, his dick wet with his own come, his knees sliding in it, his belly dripping. He came again seconds later, his breath sobbing, and again, and when Nair knotted he was blind with need, panting, helpless and broken apart. He barely noticed _bullet-in-the-night_ 's single teeth-clenched moan when he came himself, although he knew _bullet-in-the-night_ had stopped thrusting, was holding them both as still as Nair and Leila. Steve sobbed, tried to move, and _bullet-in-the-night_ bit him hard at the nape of his neck. He pushed a blurred image through the packsense, a warning of pain and chafing and hours to come.

Steve huffed, and forced himself to relax. He was aware now of just how hard the earth floor was under his knees, the grazes on the palm of his hands and the fading sting of the stretch of his ass, forced wide around _bullet-in-the-night_ 's dick. They were both still hard. _Bullet-in-the-night_ was panting. His sweat dripped onto Steve's back, chilling.

Nair rubbed his chin over Leila's ruff, and she crooned to him, the sound deep in her throat, a noise Steve had never heard her make before. They were tied together. She was unbearably smug. 

"Ah, fuck," Bucky muttered. He was pulling back. Steve, horrified, heard himself whimper. "Idiot," Bucky said, and cuffed him, gently. There was an image in the packsense of an unruly puppy, and then one of blankets. _This is only the start_ , Bucky said, echoed by Nair. Leather creaked as he climbed to his feet. He was only unsteady for that first stride. 

Steve let himself be still. He could already feel the faint heat of his bruises healing. His awareness, though, all his awareness, clinging and thankful and astonished, was with the wolves, and the dense shape of Bucky's presence. Bucky's heavy, sure step as he tapped the wall, his satisfied grunt as he found a door, and then the rattle of its latch and the scrape of it opening. Nair's faint disgust brought an image of a nose-tickling mildewed shower, but Bucky, his touch quietly clear in packsense under Leila's satisfaction, found by touch towels, a basin, a can of clean water. He dampened down a towel and brought it back to Steve, wiped him down with steady, careful strokes. One metal hand tugged his knee up, holding Steve open and vulnerable. Steve, still dazed, shivered at that intimate, cold touch. Bucky's hand tightened. He mopped Steve's ass, the sticky, cold trickle of his own come. In Bucky's memory was the image of having wanted to do this before, in other, harsher places. This was right. This was what he should do, the care he should take for his wolfbrother's mate's brother. 

"Your friend," Steve said, very quietly.

Nair and Leila were stirring. Leila shook herself and stretched, pleased with herself, eager. At her impatient urging, Nair rolled to his feet. She wanted - not yet, Nair said, gently, in packsense. He sent an image of the wolves drinking, the cool trickle of water down their throats. Bucky took a last swipe at the dampness of his own come between Steve's legs, and got to his feet again. Leather creaked. His boots were heavy on the floor, but his steps were soundless: he found a bowl, filled it, and set it down. The wolves drank. Bucky brought back a bottle of water for Steve and tucked it into his hand. When Steve, still dazed, didn't drink, he took it back, unscrewed the top, and fastened Steve's hand around it. Steve drank, and passed the battle back, half-full. 

Steve breathed. He could feel Bucky's solidity in the darkness, the familiar, unfamiliar shape of him, inexpressively dear. " Bucky," he said, out loud. It felt odd to shape his mouth around the words. Pack was all scent and image. In his mind, dazed by heat, Bucky was his scent-name, all steel and moonlight. 

"No," said Bucky.

Steve rocked forward. Blind in darkness, he touched his hand to Bucky's stubbled chin, his cheekbone, smoothed his fingers into that tangled mess of hair. "Bucky," he said again, pressing their foreheads together. 

_Bullet-in-the-night_ snorted. In packsense, he was pulling back, dragging himself into a dense roil of barbed tripwires. There was no pack, he thought. There was only this, heat, and then nothing, just loneliness, forever. 

"No!" Steve said. He flung everything he could into pack sense, Bucky's face, his smile, the familiar smell of him, his hands, his touch, how much Steve loved him - loved him, needed him, wanted him, knew him.

 _Bullet-in-the-night_ was all silence and ice, until Leila. Leila was sure of herself, this time. She rubbed her scent over Nair's coat, marking him, the way Steve's hands were touching Bucky. In a moment, very soon, they were going to mate again. Steve's mind was already blurring into Leila's possessive need, and _bullet-in-the-night_ was dragged with them, part of them, his ice gleaming in Steve's sunshine, Leila's grey coat against Nair's black. Known to us, Leila told him. Pack.

Steve told Bucky, "She chose Nair. She chose you, for me." There was still wonder in the words. Of all the wolves Leila could have picked, of all the men Steve would have had to lie down with, she'd picked Nair and Bucky. Found them and wanted them, knew them in the way only men and wolves who shared a packbond could know each other, although for Steve that connection ran deeper and older than Leila's new packsense. There was no single image he could show Bucky, in welcome. They merged into each other: his grin, years of it, gap-toothed to grim, his hands, the smell of his uniform, his hands cleaning a grate, a shirt collar, his rifle. Nair added in the feel of a comb run through his fur with loving care and the image of Steve himself, smelling of mud and ersatz coffee, curled up on a cot two feet too short for him and seen from another, comfortably sagging under the weight of a much younger Nair.

Bucky flinched. His packsense was freezing, jagged and defensive. This was temporary. They were not pack. They were breeding. Their future was cages and ice and loneliness.

Steve reached out, flattened his hands against Bucky's shoulders and urged him down. They'd found the blankets this time, which was easier on his knees when he sat on Bucky's hips, hard... " _We_ are getting out of here," Steve said, between his teeth. He could feel Leila's agreement and her confidence, backed by Nair's surging hope. "I know this isn't your choice. I'm sorry it has to be this way. But don't think you're walking out of here alone." They'd survive this. They'd live through this, and then Steve was taking Bucky home, keeping him, family, pack.

Bucky said nothing. Leila projected boredom - of course they were getting out of here. Stupid question. She turned and nipped at Nair, gently, but very sure that right now, she needed his attention on her. Their heat was already rising in the packsense.

Steve leaned forward, got a hand on Bucky's shoulder and pushed him down, crouched over him. He could feel the heat of Bucky's dick against his stomach, his own - Steve caught his breath and shuddered as he leaned in, his own dick catching against Bucky's, hot and hard and exquisitely sensitive. Neither of them had really softened, and there was an urgency in the way his balls tightened at that touch. They were going to be fucking again, very soon. He hadn't got many words left. Leila was rolling onto her paws, crouching, and Nair was lining up. 

Bucky's hands came up to hold his hips, and Steve felt soft and wet and open, where it counted. And Bucky's grip, cool metal and warm flesh, was so careful, a precisely judged support, even as his thoughts were barred and disbelieving.

"Ours," Steve hissed, one hand reaching behind him. His fingers closed around Bucky's dick and tugged it into place. He was startled by the heat and strength of Bucky's dick in his hands, shocked by how soft the skin was and how tender the flesh underneath. He lined up, just in time, just as Nair gripped Leila's neck in his teeth. It was going to be easier this time. They knew what they were doing. 

Steve rubbed his thumb against the wet tip of Bucky's dick, tested the give of his own hole. "You better believe it, pal," he said, and sat back. It was harder than he thought. He had to use his own weight to open himself up, and Bucky shuddered underneath him, silent and breathing through his teeth. Steve rocked a little, getting used to the feeling of someone else's body inside his all over again, fighting the urge to push himself down hard and fast over and over again, Nair's rhythm. He lifted a little anyway, a tease, but couldn't bear the absence and had to sit back down, harder than he intended. Bucky hissed.

Steve leaned further forward and kissed him. It was clumsy. Bucky's mouth was open, his lower lip was caught in his teeth, and Steve had never managed to work out the right angle. Their lips tangled, the pressure all wrong. Steve's left incisor caught the corner of Bucky's mouth. Stubble was surprisingly sharp against Steve's skin. He tried again, found himself pursing his mouth over Bucky's chin, and had to take a moment to reassess. Wolves don't kiss. He'd have to find their own rhythm for this. Easier if he - Steve started to rock his hips backwards and forwards, a fast, shallow, scraping stroke that echoed Nair's. It was easier to concentrate when they were in alignment. He tried again, and this time found Bucky's hand coming up to cup the back of his head and Bucky's mouth open and waiting. Slick and soft, their lips touched, lingered, broke apart, rejoined. Bucky's tongue, pointed, pressed into Steve's lower lip, flickering, and when Steve gasped Bucky took up an unintended invitation and curled his tongue against Steve's. It was a startling intimacy, breath-taking, until Bucky moved, the tiniest of thrusts, almost coy, and Steve suddenly realized that what they could do with their mouths was the same as the way he was rocking back against Bucky's dick. He pushed back, in both directions, and Bucky's mouth opened to his and his hips jerked, following Steve's lead. It was amazing, dizzying good, devastatingly intimate. It was all of them together, a pack. And Steve held on longer this time, gritting his teeth, hunching his back, until Bucky was clawing into his back as he came, as Nair came, as Steve did. As Steve did over and over again, the pressure of Bucky's dick echoing Nair's knot, forcing him open, breeding him, mating him, a white heat that forced Steve higher and higher and didn't stop until he blacked out.

It was only seconds. Bucky was already rolling them over, pulling out painfully fast, one hand cradled under Steve's head and the other, the metal one, reaching for his heart. Fear crackled through the packsense, Leila was on her feet - "I'm okay," Steve said, bleary and filthy and thankful for the respite. "I'm _fine_." He could feel Bucky's wary doubt, but Leila knew him better. She huffed, settling back down into Nair's warmth. 

Steve could really feel, this time, the stinging pain at his ass, the way his knees ached and his still half-hard dick felt over-sensitive and tender. He winced as he sat up, but it was his turn this time, and the wolves were sleeping. Steve pushed himself upright, sticky and bruised, and padded bare-footed across the beaten earth to the barren restroom. There were...tiles. A shower, dry. He stared at it, unseeing in darkness, bleary eyed. He was filthy with dirt and come, sticky all over, his ass leaking hot, irritating trickles of Bucky's come, and the shower was dry.

"Water can," Bucky told him, very dry.

It was a moment's work to find the can, and then like a small miracle there was clean water. Steve tipped out a basinful, sponging himself down, letting the cold shock him into awareness. He scrubbed down, fast, and when he was done he filled the water bowl for the wolves and rinsed out the smallest towel, taking it back to Bucky.

Bucky had moved. He had his back into the corner, opposite the door, a brooding presence. Steve passed him the towel and retrieved their water bottle. He couldn't believe Bucky still had his tactical gear on. 

Bucky stirred. He was a blur in packsense, no words, all images of protection and amour, of Steve's bare skin and the preoccupied wolves. It would be insulting, but Steve did feel shaky and vulnerable. It wasn't an emotion he wanted in the pack sense. He drank more water instead, stretched out his legs, rolled his ankles and his shoulders. There had been no light since Bucky opened the door, nothing. It was disorientating, but Steve's time sense had always been good and he thought they'd been here...three and a half, four hours? He passed Bucky the water.

"Four," Bucky said. "Four hours. Sixteen minutes." 

"Another twenty hours, then. More."

"They'll be done when they're done," Bucky said. His tone was flat, fatalistic. When he talked, his voice barely rippled in pack sense. It was hard for Steve to parse, he was so used to there being two of them in a pack, and both of them loud in their own minds and each other's. 

Steve hesitated. Then he said, "You won't leave." He was thinking of Bucky leaving Nair, leaving Steve.

Bucky's pain, white-hot, lashed across their packsense. Both wolves were instantly awake. Leila was yelping, Steve was on his feet, launched upwards by that whip-crack of memory and loss and the absolute denial of loss.

Very quietly, Bucky said, "I will not leave my brother." His voice was mild, throttled down to little more than a whisper. 

Packsense dripped blood.

"This will not happen," said Steve. He reached out, found Bucky's metal arm, and gripped it. Plates shifted under his hand, tightening. 

Nair. If Steve was right, and Nair had been watching over Leila since she was born - perhaps since before she was born - 

Nair, settling, gave him an image, fond and companionable, of Leila as a pup, so young her eyes were not yet open. Leila yawned. She was so much bigger now, she said.

If Nair had been free since Leila was born, if Bucky had been without his wolfbrother - how long, Steve wondered, how many years, what did Hydra do to Nair, to both of them - 

Tentatively, slid into packspace, was an impression of someone's paws, far too big for their owner, splashing into a saucer of milk. It was charming and funny and accompanied by such yearning Steve had to swallow against the lump in his throat. There was not even a sense of Nair's name woven into the image, as if this was all Bucky had, all he could remember of Nair beyond the packbond they shared. No-one else said anything. Even Leila was quiet. Then Nair offered up, sepia-hued, the impression of someone's knees, the size of a small mountain to a very small Nair, and a helping hand, and _trust_ and _brother_ and the warm comfort of someone's lap along with the scent of gun-oil and tobacco.

"Nair," Bucky said out loud. His voice rasped, cracking. It was the first time, Steve realized, he'd spoken outside the pack bond, and the discontinuity, the difference between the smooth, familiar voice in his head, the one he heard in the packsense, and this rough, accented voice was jarring. It was still Bucky, though, and Steve leaned in, silently apologizing, touching his shoulder against Bucky's.

Bucky tensed. Steve, reckless, leaned a little harder, just to make his point - they'd meet this shoulder to shoulder, he was at Bucky's side, had his back, they'd never be alone again - and Leila rolled over, stretched, and shivered. She was hot. She was - all her thoughts narrowed down to Nair, and Nair's weight and warmth and puppies and pack and _again_.

The image vanished. In packsense, Bucky had gone, that trace of affection and memory lost into darkness. Heat smashed into both of them - Steve still shocked at the force of it, Bucky moving, swift and prepared. He grabbed Steve's ankles and pushed him over, down onto the blankets. Neither wolf was in any mood to wait, and the wave of heat crashing over all of them was so strong it felt like a living entity. Steve was painfully hard, beyond shame, arching backwards, thankful beyond words for Bucky's hands holding him open and the confident push of his dick into Steve's body. The rough blanket against his chest felt good, the stretch and roll of his muscles a justified exhibitionism, and the first, rough thrust of Bucky's dick was a viciously perfect echo of the wolves mating. Penetration hurt, his body not yet healed, but Steve rocked and heaved in Bucky's grip, shoved his knees further apart and dug his toes into the earth and pushed back, welcomed the harsh tangle of Bucky's flesh hand in his hair and pleaded aloud. "Bucky," he said, "Bucky, c'mon." 

Bucky, pressed as far inside Steve's body as he could get, was not moving. His head was down between Steve's shoulder blades, sweaty strands of hair and cheekbones and panted breaths, while his metal hand, firm across Steve's belly, held him still. His thighs held Steve's apart, his weight pushed Steve down, and although Steve knew - knew sure as he knew this was temporary, this was the madness of heat and it would pass - although Steve knew he could fight, he did not. He said, aching, "Come on, Bucky, Buck, please..."

It was only when Steve finally quietened, desperate, knowing Nair and Leila were absolutely oblivious to both of them, that Bucky moved. He barely shifted his hips, grinding his dick into Steve's body in short, powerful strokes, rocking both of them. It felt to Steve as if his body was being remade with every tiny shift. He was so sensitive every sensation was magnified, the sure, nuzzling thrust of the head of Bucky's dick, the strained sore muscles of his asshole clenched around that thick, veined shaft, the prickle of Bucky's pubic hair against his buttocks. Bucky's solid grip, his sobbed breath and the steady, implacable thrust of his dick, the mounting hunger that Steve fought and moaned into the blanket and clenched his fists against. When he came it was too soon, the sensation mounting so slowly and inexorably he could feel it surge through his body, the way his stomach muscles clenched and his balls tightened, the way his thighs tensed and his shoulders braced and his toes curled. The blush of heat across the back of his neck and over his chest, and then, inescapable, the rush that blindsided him, more powerful than he was expecting, a blinding, clawed animal. His own voice was unrecognizable. Everything broke - he couldn't hold himself up, he couldn't breath, his hips stuttered and jerked against Bucky's, his ass clenched and spasmed, and Bucky fucked him all the way through that first orgasm and straight into the next. Bucky didn't stop, wouldn't stop, his arm holding Steve's ass up and his hand wrenching Steve's head sideways, forcing him to breath, relentless and implacable and painfully present. "Huh, huh, huh," Steve groaned with every thrust, helpless. He'd got nothing left in his balls, he was spitting dry, his dick stung and ached and still he couldn't stop. The wolves were - Thank God, Steve managed, as Leila yelped, as Bucky hesitated, the second before he came, as Nair did, as Steve groaned aloud one last time and, at last, at last, Bucky let him collapse. 

There was a long, long interval while Steve lay on his back and thought of nothing at all, and Bucky lay next to him and breathed very, very evenly, and Nair and Leila panted very smugly at each other. Steve's body knitted itself back together, the bruises at his waist fading, his ass tightening. One last little trickle of Bucky's come meandered between his thighs, tickling, and he was still uncomfortably wet inside, but Leila was so boundlessly content Steve could only trust her judgment. 

And then he was starving. Abruptly, his stomach rumbled.

Bucky stood, fast and smooth, tugged a couple of straps back into place and stepped away with sure-footed certainty. The air moved around him, the smell of leather and sweat and drying come, sharply acrid. Nair, dozing, mapped out in lazy scent traces food on a shelf at the back of the hut and a small stove, cobbled together, Steve thought, out of two tin cans and firelighters. Kindly, Nair offered, with tolerant disgust, the human staple of a pot of hot bitterbrew. 

Sitting up, Steve said, "I've got matches."

Bucky had a propane lighter. Aloud, he said, "We won't have long. If you want to clean up, do it now." His hands worked quickly, in the light from the stove, filling a pan with bottled water. "Eat," he said. He reached to the shelf, dragged down a hessian sack, and found a couple of tins, something in a packet, lots of small packets. He threw the tins to Steve, and upended the packets into his own mouth. 

Steve was holding sardines. The shape of the tin was unmistakable, the little key to turn back the lid. When he was younger, Steve used to struggle to peel the metal apart, but now he managed in one easy movement. The smell of fish and oil and tomato was painfully reminiscent of other times and other places. 

"Eat," Bucky said again, with more force to the words.

Steve did. He said, "Beats C-rations any day. Thanks." 

Bucky grunted. He tipped coffee grounds into the pan, measuring by eye. In packsense, there was a regretful image of some kind of...molded, sour-tasting bar they didn't have, heat rations, something that could be digested easily and swiftly and eaten by man and wolf alike. MRE rations, Steve thought. He was still hungry, he'd have eaten half a dozen tins of sardines if he could, but if that was all there was he'd cope. He was not eating Bucky's share. 

"Would've stocked up if I'd known we were having guests," Bucky said. "Here." He threw something, an apple. "Got more of those," he said. And then, "The third time's always the worst. Longest. The last few hurt most." He was matter of fact. In packsense, he was contained, neatly arrayed, aware. There was a part of Bucky assessing the last patrol he and Nair did, the untouched ground and unscented air, the trip-wires and bells and traps and how far sound was likely to carry into their base - the breeding hut, he clarified, for Steve. The depth of turf over the hut was deep enough to deter an infra-red probe. There were no electronics to alert an EMP detector, no electrical activity. Their weapons - Bucky's weapons, he said, with force, images of maimed paws and broken teeth and death if wolves went poking their noses in dangerous places - were both well concealed and readily to hand. There was enough water, not enough food for the humans, although there was meat hanging at the back of the hut, for the wolves. Enough for them. Not enough for all four of them.

"I'm not eating raw meat," Steve said.

"You will if you're hungry enough," Bucky said. 

He strained the coffee through what looked like a knotted handkerchief. There was a mug, branded with a gas-station logo: he filled it, added in five packets of sugar, and passed the coffee to Steve. 

The heavy smell of it was bracingly, darkly familiar. Steve felt as if he had been half asleep and was only now waking up. He was still on the edge of heat, his balls were tender between his legs and his skin felt fever-hot and sensitive, but his head was clear. He looked up, after the first sip, watching Bucky's hands, illuminated by the pool of light from the stove, all shadows and pale skin, and the deep black of his tactical gear, cut by the gleam of snaps and buckles. Bucky's face, resigned, his cheekbones carved out by the hollow of his cheeks, his mouth held to a thin line. Bucky. Steve was abruptly liquid all through with relief, astonishment - and then, ice-cold, shame. "Bucky!" It was half gasped. This - what he'd done - what they'd done - he had Bucky's come trickling between his thighs.

Bucky was pouring coffee into the lid of the pan. His hands were steady. He drank swiftly, precisely. Bucky was not going to say, _well, pal, look on the bright side_ , or, _another fine mess you've got us into, Rogers_. He was not going catch Steve's eye and grin. Smile. Even - hell, Steve thought, even if his face lightened a little, lost some of the graven lines around his eyes and his mouth. If Steve could make him smile -

Steve was never going to be able to say, welcome home. I missed you. Not now.

"Clean up, if you're going to," Bucky said.

Packsense ached with Steve's regret. He tried to hold it in, choked on his coffee and had to swallow hard: it was the strain that made his eyes water. The mug thudded against the floor. He stood up, shaky, took himself to the tiny washroom and cleaned himself down in the dark. The towels were still damp. He was shivering, great long shuddering waves of shock and repulsion. What had he done? Anything would be better than this, any of the many, many imagined scenarios in which he found Bucky again. 

Leila was awake. Already their packsense was warming and blurring into her resurgent heat. Steve was conscious of the smell of Nair's fur and the fine, elegant line of his nose and his strength, solid and protective, his weight and powerful shoulders.

He had, Steve thought, two or three minutes before any tactical ability he had left was subsumed in the urge to get his wolfsister's mate's brother inside him any way he could. He was not sore: Bucky had been brutally practical, obviously, in retrospect, knowing they were in this for however long it took. Bucky had done this before. Bucky was as careful and as guarded as he could be and careful of Steve, the way any good NCO was careful of the men under him...

Nair, cautiously, thought of how brightly Leila burned, how beloved she was after the long dark years of forced heats and partners who were flung into the breeding hut late and frantic and often drugged. She, though, Nair murmured, she was perfect, the wolf of his dreams, sharp-nosed and strong and wise, his queen, his empress, his mate. 

The light went out. Bucky had extinguished the stove, tucking it far away from flailing limbs and incautious bare feet. For the first time, he was present enough in packsense for Steve to sense that caution, and the weary care Bucky was taking for these new heat partners, two among many, another pair of strangers he and his brother did not choose.

It was too late to change anything about the structure of the situation. A wolf's choice was set. But Steve could, maybe, make it better. Make some tactical choices.

He was tied to their packsense, and Bucky picked up the thought. There was an edge of irritation to the way he shoved an image at Steve of the blankets found and refolded into a makeshift mattress, the retrieved bottled water and the - "Oh hell, no," Steve said, "Bucky, if you think I'm greasing myself up with _butter_ , you got another think coming."

Bucky sent him a moment, a memory, of aching, bloodied pain. It was a flashing instant, but not quick enough. Leila whined. Her nose was in the air, scenting, and Steve was suddenly aware of how the still air smelled of himself and Bucky, their mingled sweat and come, Steve's bare-footed footsteps and the press of his hands into the earth, Buck's leather and steel, fresh coffee and apples and wool fibers and meat, a colony of beetles, an irritating flying thing lost in darkness. No blood. "I'm okay," Steve told his wolfsister. "I'm fine, it's okay, I'm with you." Nair was rubbing his head against hers, reassuring. Steve thought of Bucky's hands and his carefulness, the water, the towels, the blankets, the coffee. Bucky.

Bucky snorted. Leila, assuaged, relaxed, letting herself fall back into the rising, humming surge of her heat. And Steve locked away that moment of pain, and told himself that later, for every hurt Hydra had ever inflicted, there would be an implacable and inescapable justice. Now - now, he took the four steps that separated him from Bucky. He said, "I've been looking for you."

"I know," Bucky said. 

"I want you to know-"

"Stop. Stop there. I don't need a fucking motivational speech," Bucky said. 

"You didn't know what you were doing," Steve said firmly.

"Like hell I didn't," said Bucky. 

Steve swallowed, and said, "Okay. Fair enough."

"Ain't gonna happen again," Bucky said. "Not if I can help it."

"Okay," Steve said. 

"Unless that tracker in your phone calls in the bunch of idiots you're running with," Bucky said.

"It's redirected," said Steve, who had not divulged to Sam or Natasha that he did, in fact, know how to move unseen and undetected outside a digital network. "I just wanted - I didn't know she was going into heat, Buck," he said. "I didn't know you were here."

"She sure as hell did," Bucky said. "No - hang on, back the hell up, I know you didn't know, Jesus."

Steve stopped moving, holding his ground.

"About your wolfsister," Bucky said. "I'm gonna bet you got a few ideas about being gentlemanly and maybe about pack and maybe about packbonds. Forget 'em. They're breeding. We're fucking. That's how it is."

Steve took half a step forward. He reached out a hand, slowly, knowing the movement of the air would warn Bucky he was moving. He got a hand on Bucky's chest, the thick leather of his jacket and the straps over it, slid his fingers up, and closed his grip on Bucky's shoulder. Leaned in.

"It ain't over yet," Steve said. They were almost the same height. He was naked. It meant he could feel the chill of steel, the buckles and knives and knuckle-dusters and that little gun he knew Bucky had in his boot, and the warmth of his body where the leather was thinnest and the kevlar amour shaved down to allow movement. "Make it good." He'd got his other hand, now, on Bucky's dick, the living heat of it under the uniform cup against Steve's fingers. 

"You know," Bucky said. This close, his breathing was as controlled as Steve's. The wolves had been ready to go for minutes. Leila had been as patient as she could be with her brother, but it was past time Nair was inside her. "You make it damn hard, Rogers, for a guy-"

"What?" he asked. "What?"

Steve was sniggering into his shoulder. He'd let his hands drift, but now he was holding both of Bucky's hands, metal and flesh, palm to palm and fingers intertwined. "Nobody tells me blue jokes any more," he said. He let himself curl his chest and shoulders into Bucky's weight, roll his hips and press his dick against Bucky's, making it very clear what he was referencing. They were both hard. Bucky was going to have to do something very soon, if he wasn't going to risk penile strangulation. 

"For the love of God," said Bucky, and tripped Steve up, gently, landing him on his knees. "Make yourself useful." His hands were in Steve's hair, pulling him in. Not hard.

"I'll do my best," Steve promised, reckless, and undid Bucky's belt. Unzipping, he could smell Bucky's dick, a richly sour-sweet smell, dizzying. The familiar scent drew him in. Shaking: he rolled his face against it, eyes closed, panting against the urgency of the wolves. It was Bucky who reached down and tugged his dick free, offering. Steve opened his mouth against that blood-hot shaft, and breathed in, while Bucky's hands cradled the back of his head... Then, as Bucky's hands tightened, he ran his tongue from base to tip, from the point where the teeth of Bucky's zip bit into the tender skin of his balls to the swelling, plum-curve of the head. There was a trace of salt-sour precome at the tip of Bucky's dick, more as Steve investigated, curious. Bucky's fingers tensed and relaxed. 

Then, both of them gasped. Leila had taken Nair inside her, and abruptly Steve needed, wanted, was desperate for - open mouthed, he arched his neck and took Bucky's dick in one heavy, sour thrust. It was almost too much. Bucky felt bigger in his mouth than he had under Steve's hand, more powerful, more vulnerable. Steve had to work to keep his jaws wide, his teeth shielded, had to close his lips and suck and screw himself down, saliva flooding his mouth. It was clumsy and wetter than he'd anticipated, this act, and unexpectedly empowering: he could feel the shake in Bucky's hips against his palms, and the way his stomach muscles clenched. His rhythm was Nair's, was Bucky's, and for the first time, Bucky's presence in pack sense was all heat and desire and Steve was aching with the intimacy, on the verge of coming himself. He clutched his own dick, squeezing as tightly as he could bear, and clung to the pain to hold himself steady, determined this time to echo the wolves. Two more minutes, one - he braced himself, widened his knees, and swallowed as Nair gave one final heave and thrust. Packsense was all white light. It hurt to take Bucky's dick that far, Steve was gagging, tears starting in his eyes, but he was almost part of Bucky now, something completed and honest between them. Then Bucky's voice fractured into a strangulated yelp. His hands flew open, his knees buckled, his hips jerked in Steve's hands and his dick pulsed in Steve's mouth, bitter bursts of viscous come coating his tongue and sticking at the back of his throat. He followed Bucky down, an inelegant sprawl of knees and elbows, and just managed not to hurt either of them in falling. His head was perfectly sited against Bucky's hip, buckles stiff against his cheek - he turned his head, nuzzled back, licking Bucky clean, mouthing at the beautifully curved head that fit so perfectly on his tongue, humping his own hips and his own dick into the soft warmth of the blankets. Nair was still moving, chasing the last dregs of sensation, and Steve, proud of himself, happy, was working towards orgasm as gently as falling asleep.

Seconds before he came, Bucky dragged him up, kissed him wide and wet and messy, and got a hand on Steve's dick. Bucky tasted of coffee. Steve tasted of Bucky's come, the bitter traces of it at the back of his mouth. He panted into Bucky's mouth, eyes closed, as Bucky's fingers stripped the last drops. They were both still hard, Nair and Leila were knotted. In packsense, Bucky was a confused, heated presence, tension curled at the base of his spine, his balls aching, still breathless. Steve leaned up on an elbow, grinning, and Bucky struggled upright and kissed him again. His hand was a loose curl around Steve's dick. He was rolling them both, his heavy thigh over Steve's legs, soft leather and cutting buckles. Steve reached up and pulled him down, kissed him again, again, little breathless kisses, the curl of Bucky's mouth and the dimple in his chin and the strong arch of his lower lip and the tip of his nose and his mouth again, his wicked, familiar mouth, and Bucky kissed back. His metal hand cupped the back of Steve's head, plates catching in Steve's hair, a sweet, sharp pain. Packsense reverberated between the wolves, comfortably engaged, and Steve's pleasure and Bucky, himself, blown open and resentful and clinging. 

"Don't-" Bucky said, "Don't - don't plan anything, I-"

Steve smiled. He could feel it in the packsense, the golden warmth of himself, happy. And Bucky kissed him again, solid and warm and real in Steve's arms. It was only when Nair and Leila disengaged that either of them pulled back, and then it was to lie shoulder to shoulder.

"You should sleep," Bucky said, whispered, his voice barely carrying, his metal hand firmly closed around Steve's wrist.

Steve was almost there. 

When he woke up, the wolves were already fucking. He was on his stomach, and Bucky's thighs were between his, his fingertips pressing at Steve's ass, slippery and shaking. "Yeah," Steve said, bleary and far further into Leila's mind than he expected, her joyous urgency and her need to take Nair over and over again. Steve got his knees under him and pushed back against Bucky's fingers, jerking, abruptly desperate. He whined, begging, the twist of Bucky's fingers not enough, ignoring the sting of his muscles stretched too fast and Bucky's clenched-teeth restraint. "Come on come on do me," Steve ordered. "Bucky!"

There was a terrible hesitation when Bucky pulled back, and then his knuckles brushed Steve's inner thigh and his metaled thumb pressed into his ass, one last check, and afterwards and at last the smoothly rounded head of his dick, easing inside slippery and cautious while Steve ached for a powerful thrust. Steve braced his shoulders, dropped his head, and pushed back, until Bucky just stopped and held himself steady while Steve took what he needed the way Leila was taking Nair. He was vaguely aware that the effort cost Bucky, his thighs were shaking, but it was not until Steve came that he realized how much. It was then that Bucky picked him up by the hips and held him steady at exactly the right angle and took him over and over again, long, heavy thrusts that felt as if they burrowed down into Steve's body, steady as a tolling bell. Steve shook and groaned and his elbows gave out, but Bucky kept fucking him, his rhythm Nair's rhythm, Steve's tight, hot body Leila's, all of them part of something greater and more powerful than their individual components. Steve was coming again, untouched, his dick splattering onto the blankets, his belly, while Bucky fucked him through it and out the other side. Steve didn't stop coming, although Bucky held him steady and fucked him through that third one as well, and the fourth, until Steve was open and wet and messy and still Bucky didn't stop. Steve felt as if he was floating. Red starbursts patterned the inside of his eyelids. Everything he was, himself, was held in the grip of Bucky's hands, as real in packsense as they were on Steve's hips.

It was only when Nair knotted that Bucky fell apart. He was collapsing the second before he came, his hands flying open, falling forward, his weight half on Steve's back and half off, sobbing as his dick slipped free. Steve twisted and jerked, but he was abruptly empty and bereft until Bucky, shaking, got a hand down and crammed his dick back in Steve's body, still blurting come, softer and somehow heartbreakingly sweet. They were both soaked with cooling sweat: Steve reached out to drag a blanket over their backs, realized his fingers were shaking, and held onto Bucky anyway, the pair of them curled together. 

It was a long time before Bucky stirred. He rolled his head against Steve's shoulder blade, mouthed his skin the way Nair had his jaws on Leila's neck, and said, "Did you call my dick sweet?"

Steve turned his face towards Bucky's, the blanket, soft as it was under his back, harsh against his cheek. "Wanna make something of it, Barnes?" he said. He was smiling. The world was soft at the edges. He was honestly tired in a way he hadn't been since he came out of the ice. Maybe, he thought, heat sex was a coping mechanism he should have tried earlier. 

Leila was laughing at him.

"Nah," Bucky said. He pulled out as Nair did, both of them regretting the necessity. Nair dropped straight down to his belly, Bucky rolled off and lay on his back, next to Steve. His flesh arm thumped down, his metal arm thudded, and his stomach was rumbling. "Apples," he said hopefully. "Meat for the wolves. Knife on the rope."

"'kay," Steve said, and didn't move. 

"Steve."

"Yup," Steve said, and got up onto his knees. Swayed, gently. Stood up, and felt his way on slowly strengthening legs to the water, wiped himself down and rinsed out the towels, and found Bucky's stores. It took him five minutes feed the wolves, but by then his head was clearer and his legs steady and he was consciously aware of how open and empty he felt. Cleaned out. Sore, in a good way. He let the feeling drift into packsense, where, grudgingly, Bucky acknowledged that Steve had done well, was supporting his sister as he should.

Leila was proud of him. Amused, at how much fuss he and _bullet-in-the-night_ made of something so simple. Nair was more guarded, careful, more aware than Leila of how long her heat had already trapped them in one place and how vulnerable it made them. He was urging Leila to eat, pushing _hunger_ at the two humans, underpinned by an imperative _eat when you can_.

Steve found apples, and dried meat. Bucky and his father were the only people Steve had ever met who ate apples whole, core and pips and sharp bits and if there was someone watching the stem as well. The memory stabbed, sharp as a knife: Bucky flinched. Packsense darkened as Nair bristled, fiercely protective for his brother.

"Gonna light a fire and roast marshmallows too, Rogers?" Bucky said, sardonic.

"You won't thank me for that either," Steve said. "Sorry."

"Yeah, well," Bucky said. He sighed, added, "I know you're trying," and stretched, a roll and heave that, by the sound of shifting cloth, started with his shoulders and ended at his fingertips. When he relaxed, Nair dropped his chin back onto Leila's back. "Pass 'em over," Bucky said. "The apples. Half."

"Hold your hand out," Steve said, and found it in the dark. He passed over apples and a handful of jerky. They were both running warm, although for the moment. Bucky's fingers were the same, the same shape, the same familiar angles and flesh and bone. 

Bucky ate fast, teeth crunching into flesh. Steve cut his own apples into slices with one of Bucky's knives, aware he was not actually that hungry, and wondering if that was because the wolves were fed and dozing. He knew Bucky was barely tasting the apple, eating for fuel. 

"Another day. Maybe a day and a half," Bucky said. 

"Goddammit," Steve said. He leaned back on his elbows. Leila was dreaming of sunshine, warm and comfortable, not yet the compelling desire of her heat. "I had pottery class." 

Bucky choked. "That-" he said. "That wasn't what I expected you to say."

"Yeah?" Steve said. He rolled over. Bucky's thigh was solid against his shoulder, heated under leather. He was armored in all the places Steve was bare. "Buck-"

"Look," Bucky said. "Ain't no way in hell - you gotta know. Everyone's gonna be after those pups. First litter. I bet every fucking agency on the planet's gonna want one."

"I know," Steve said. He did. The fear was bone deep. After Leila's first heat, horrific as it had been to ride out alone, he'd been thankful she hadn't tied herself down, that no-one else had a claim on her, that he'd had Natasha and Tony and Jarvis to lock down the tower and vet the few wolves she'd ever looked twice at, almost as good as pack.

"They're gonna have to go through me first," he said. 

"What if that's not enough?" Bucky said. There was an echo in his mind of other wolves, unknown litters and unknown pups. Nair had never seen the wolves he sired for Hydra.

"It has to be," Steve said. He wasn't going to ask. He couldn't. "And she - Bucky, she thinks-"

She was waking up, excited, proud of herself, surrounded by pack. Steve curled over, pressed his forehead into Bucky's thigh, and let himself feel her joy. He was so proud of her. He loved her. All was well. 

Above him, Bucky sighed. He dropped a hand onto Steve's head, his metal hand, heavy and warm. Then Nair woke up, yawning, and Leila's attention snapped back to the imperative of her body, and Steve got to his hands and knees.

Sometime on the second day, Steve lost count of the number of times they'd fucked. The wolves never seemed to tire. He and Bucky fucked and snatched food when they could and slept when they could. His body, subsumed into Leila's biological imperative, was both sustained and weakened by the serum. He healed quickly, but the price was his enhanced, demanding metabolism. Bucky, he thought, must be in the same position, although Bucky was either handling it better or was more used - Steve winced - to treating his body as a tool. They halved their rations, quartered them, tried to persuade each other that they'd eaten enough. They were sore and battered and tired, fucking half-asleep, nursing bruised knees and bruised elbows, and wincingly tender where their bodies joined. Steve gave up trying to get Bucky out of his tactical gear. Bucky gave up trying to ease Steve through every fuck. They were too tired to talk, too tired to remember the years between them: they slept curled into each other, buried in packsense. 

On the third day, even the wolves were tired. They fucked languidly, braced against each other. Bucky winced, burying his head between Steve's shoulder blades. "I never thought I'd say this," he muttered.

"I know," Steve said. "Want me to...?"

"God, yeah," Bucky said. He rolled off, flopping onto his back. 

Steve could have sworn, that time, he fell asleep during, not after. But when he woke up, something had changed. The wolves were still asleep. He was exhausted, hungry, filthy, nothing new. He cracked his eyes open.

The shutter was open. There was a faint breeze, grass-scented. It was morning, very early, dawn a faint promise of color above the horizon. There was just enough light to pick out Bucky's face, drawn, unshaven. He was standing on the threshold. 

"Tell me it's over," Steve said.

Turning, Bucky came back into the hut. He knelt, carefully, next to Steve. "Yeah," he said. His eyes catalogued Steve's body, bruises and dirt and his own fingerprints, came back to meet Steve's. His gaze was clear. In packsense, he felt weightless and solid at the same time, present, free. 

Steve reached out a hand, and Bucky took it. Their fingers intertwined. Steve said, "You know what I want?"

"What?"

"Pancakes," Steve said. 

Bucky stared at him. Steve shrugged, grinning, and then his stomach grumbled loud enough to wake the wolves. Bucky's head was down and he was shaking his head, and his mouth was curling up at the corners. Nair ran an inquisitive image of the taste and the smell of sausage links through their pack sense, Leila demanded bacon, and Steve said, "C'mon home, Buck."

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> The four Leila stories tarted off as an MCU riff on Dira Sudis' absolutely superb _Generation Kill_ series, [Every Marine a Wolfbrother](http://archiveofourown.org/series/10153), which is itself a fusion with Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette's Iskryne Series. They were going to be long and politically involved. Like so many brilliant ideas, this never happened, so instead the Leila Stories are the scavenged remnants of that far longer and better story. 
> 
> The Iskyrne series (initially) describes a band of Vikingesque warriors, each with a psychic bond to a wolf, both warriors and wolves bound by the social structures of a wolfpack. Dira Sudis translates this pack structure into modern military terms, with all the advantages and disadvantages of military discipline working with and against pack discipline.
> 
> This fourth story is concerned with bonded heat sex, and necessarily involves dubious consent.


End file.
